By Sonja Klotz (The Cascade) – Email
After nearly a year of sitting vacant, U-House on Abbotsford campus sits as a building in transition — no longer a student hangout space, but not the site of a major makeover either.
In April 2015, Student Life moved out of the U-House and into the Student Union Building along with many of the student service related departments on campus. As a result, only half of the U-House space has been utilized by the Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies, leaving the other half completely empty. Although there have been various proposals brought forward to the campus space planning committee, none of them came into fruition. One of the proposals discussed the possibility of turning the space into a conference centre for external organizations and companies.
“About this time last year, with the help of the architects that were involved, [we] took a look at the bones of the building and the age of the building and … it doesn’t really have the potential for a big addition,” says Craig Toews, executive director of campus planning and resource development.
Instead of turning U-House into a conference centre, the university decided to clean it up and do a paint and patch job after Student Life left. Currently, it is being used as a flexspace — rentable for events, but otherwise closed.
“The university doesn’t have a lot of space outside of classroom schedule,” Toews says. “So students, faculty, departments, and people can book it as flexspace.”
Toews adds that there is a priority list for the building. “There may be some smaller groups that get bumped by larger functions because of the space’s size and configuration,” he says.
In addition to this, UFV has recently hired a conference coordinator, Karen Robey, who will be working primarily out of the U-House space. Her position is to oversee all conference and event planning engagements that will be taking place on the university campuses, including the flexspace.
Robey’s is a new position at UFV.
“It centralizes the services,” Toews says. “It leverages our space to make revenue for the university, but it also provides a much better community experience when they come on campus.”
For Toews, the number one priority is education, and if outside rentals help with operational costs, Toews thinks this would not only be beneficial to students, but to UFV as a whole.
